Dealing With Suicide - A Letter From My Uncle 2-21-2023

Uncle Robert 

Memorial Day can be especially emotional and difficult for those who have lost loved ones in a tragic or sudden way. 

The following is a letter my Uncle Rob shared with me back in February this year.  We had been chatting, sharing some family memories at my grandma's funeral. Rob knew I was spending the weekend with my best friend for her 50th birthday in February. He knew how her son died and felt like he could relate with her really well and that a letter might help. He said it was healing for him to write out his feelings especially because this was his first attempt since his son's suicide in 2017. I've always loved my Uncle Rob and I appreciate his willingness to share something so difficult and personal.

"Alicia, I hope and pray that this might offer some help.  Love you.

First of all just note the following because I often don’t think I’ve got something  worthwhile to say, but maybe my experience here might be helpful, and I hope so. I don’t think I’ve ever been a real emotionally healthy guy partly due to the time era in which I was born, and for my upbringing, or lack of it. But right after Jordan’s death and for some-time after, my emotions were really messed up. I’ve been frustrated and even upset with God for this last decade beginning in August of 2010 and on with a separation and divorce, the death of Jordan, Phillip in and out of jail, etc., just to mention a few of many detrimental events that I won’t mention here now.

I have been understanding that this might be the only way or the best way for me to learn though, to heal

 and become better in so many ways. I finally see God’s hand in it all and now I just pray that I can hopefully learn better and faster. Somethings I catch on fast and others not so much. I’ve got a long way to go but I do have a little faith and I can’t and won’t give up. That’s just something that no matter what else someone may have already done, you can’t put them through that again. I really do hope what I say here might be able to help another who may have lost a loved one through suicide.

 

When Jordan had come back to the states he and his wife (Brittany) purchased a home in Kansas City, Missouri . But it wasn’t too long after and they were going through their divorce. It was also Brittany’s choice and not Jordan’s so it was pretty tough on him as well. I flew back to KC and could tell Jordan was drinking. Brittany had already moved out and he was alone and depressed. He was trying to make it not look as bad as it was I believe. I helped him move to Utah as Liz and Brett had invited him to come there until he could get his feet back on the ground and start moving forward. When I helped him move back I was still living in Boise at the time but he took me to the airport so I could then fly back to Boise.

Jordan Lee Manwill 1986-2017
https://memorialutah.com/obituaries/jordan-lee-manwill/

 

He moved in with Liz and Brett and we were all hoping he could pursue his education and move forward with a better life. But not long just a few months afterwards I got a call from Brett, telling me that Jordan was “using” again and it had to stop. Jordan was drinking and using heroin in their house. When he was in Afghanistan before coming back to the states is where he tried heroin for the first time. It was high quality, plentiful and cheap there. He was a good guy though. He had been offered the Purple Heart twice and turned it down both times. I think he didn’t like what he had to do to earn those.

 

I’ve come to realize through my son’s experience within the military that if you’re not an alcoholic when you join, your commanding officers will do their best to make you one. That along with the horrors those guys see, it’s no wonder so many have PTSD and then “use” to get by. Jordan was kind but I also had no idea that he was an adrenaline junkie much more than I ever realized until after his death. He had his rotary wing license (helicopter) that he earned privately in Boise before the military. But when he joined, he said that he wanted to be there on the ground with all the guys and the action and fighting, not flying. But I don’t think he had an idea as to how much it would affect him negatively later on with PTSD.

 

Jordan loved the less advantaged and loved all animals. He had a big heart and was always rooting for the little guy. But I also understood Brett and Liz when they said they weren’t allowing the drugs and alcohol in their house and Brett had just called me after letting Jordan know the ultimatum once again, and was then wondering what he should do next. He wanted my advice if he should call the police or not because he had been warned before. I told Brett that I thought he probably didn’t have any other choice. He and Liz both had told Jordan before that wasn’t allowed in their house. But Jordan had another idea and while I was still on the phone with Brett, Jordan went down in their basement and grabbed a gun out of his footlocker and then went into the backyard so he didn’t make a mess in their house, and then he put the gun to his head.

 

Brett started yelling “Oh no!” over the phone and I didn’t know for sure what was going on but then he told me. I was standing there in my office in Boise and I went numb. All I could think in my initial thoughts was denial and that he’ll be okay. They will get him to the hospital and he will be okay. But it was too severe and too late. It’s been one of if not the toughest thing I’ve ever had to go through.

 

When someone takes their own life it’s a different kind of death for the family to handle. It’s not one that most can understand until you experience it yourself. It’s not a club you want to become a member of, but yet you really can’t understand until you are a member of that club*. It’s so different than dying from an illness, an accident or from just old age. It always leaves everyone within the family and close friends, the unwilling new members of the club, wondering what they could have done differently or said before, and that feeling really doesn’t go away too easily for a long time.

 

It really hurts and messes with your emotions for way too long. I highly recommend some good and thoughtful counseling. I also highly recommend having faith in a loving Heavenly Father and Mother who know all and want to comfort us all that we will allow them to do. Grieve, cry, and talk about it anytime if and when you need. That advice really needs to be heeded by guys too and especially because we’re taught to not cry or show emotions as much. But do it. Let it out and let it go. But even that can be hard at times because you might just start crying while you’re around others and your first reaction is that you don’t want that to happen.

 

There were so many of Jordan’s own fellow troops and military buddies that showed up to his funeral that we had a hard time fitting everyone in for his service.  There was a lot left standing off to the sides and in the isles. They had traveled from many different states to be there for him. He was my first son, the one dads always make the most mistakes with. I really miss him even though that was over five years ago.

 

He’s been gone now since July of 2017 but in September of 2018 I decided that I needed to get back to church.  It had been a few years of me being inactive.  I was sitting in church within the overflow area between the chapel and the cultural hall. It was the beginning of Sacrament meeting and I was just enjoying the prelude music when all of the sudden I looked up on the rostrum and saw Jordan standing there behind the bishop, where the choir would be sitting. He was looking right at me and then I heard him speak even though it seemed to me that his mouth didn’t move and no one else could hear him, but it was so audible and so clear and penetrating to me. 

He only said two words but they were the best advice I believe that I’ve ever had.  He simply said “let go” and then he was gone.  Those two words have had so many different perspectives and have been so deep that it’s almost hard to imagine.  First of all I had to let go of him.  I had to let go of the things I was having a hard time with like my ex, his mother and all that I had blamed her for.  I had to let go of ways that I dealt with things that were wrong just because of a messed up childhood. I could go on forever with things that I need to let go of and to rely upon God for help. I had to let go and to let God play a much stronger role in my life. 

 

I guess one other thing I could mention when it comes to losing someone so close through suicide is this following +article below.  We often don’t realize what others we love so much are going through at times or just too often. There was even an individual or two at Jordan’s funeral that mentioned because he took his own life that he would be punished in the hereafter for that.  I just took it that they really didn’t know, and that I am grateful for us all to be judged by those that are capable of doing the judging, and not another flawed earthly being like me. I know and the rest of the family knows that Jordan is okay and he is happy and with those that we all love and that have gone on before us. I just hope and pray that anyone else in similar circumstances might be able to use some of this information. I know how they feel and what they have and are going through and I pray for them too.

 - Uncle Rob"

P.S. Alicia, There was actually a club a few years ago called LOSS (Lost Ones Survivors of Suicide). They had meetings each month that were held at Intermountain Hospital in Murray, the same place in which Jordan was rushed to but also pronounced dead upon arrival. It wasn’t a bad support group and was usually chaired by a trained “survivors of suicide” counselor.

+A Perspective on Suicide

June 4, 2014 By Shawna Morrissey

 Before you read this post, I want to make it very clear that suicide is NOT the answer. Your life is precious.  If you are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, PLEASE SEEK HELP!   This post was in no way meant to glorify suicide or offer it as a viable solution to any problem.  Rather, it was written to aid those left behind to understand, to forgive and to heal.......

...The bishop’s words at Jay’s funeral gave me comfort at the time.  Jay had not been accountable, but I sensed there was deeper significance in his words, “Suicide was not a choice he made, but rather a choice he happened onto when his pain was greater than his ability to cope.”

Just last year, I had a clarifying experience—an experience that helped me to understand suicide a little better and led me to believe that it is really an expression of the deepest human desire to survive.

My family was watching a documentary on the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for the first time, I saw footage of someone jumping from the window of one of the twin towers.  All at once, I understood what Jay’s bishop had meant.  The person was not jumping from the building to die, but rather to escape the intense and consuming flames.  Nobody would accuse that person of being selfish or of giving up on life.

Jay was inside a figurative burning building and he happened upon an exit.  His deep need to survive caused him to take it.  Many who turn to suicide are in physical, emotional or spiritual pain.  I don’t think they seek death.  Instead, they seek escape, so that their identity and intelligence can survive.

Ever since my experience with Jay, I have felt compassion and a connection to those left in the wake of such a suicide.   It is intensely agonizing for surviving loved ones.  Not only do we mourn the loss of someone dear to us, but we also feel the pain of sorrow and of guilt.  We wish we could have made a difference.  We feel anger at their betrayal and our perception of their selfishness.  We fear that all is lost.  But, in my experience, if we are willing to soften our hearts, over time we realize that we are forgiven, that they were not selfish and that all is not lost.

Jay’s bishop said one other thing that has stuck with me all these years.  He said, “Christ did not call Jay home in this manner.  But I can testify that He did welcome him home.”

I share these thoughts not at all in support of suicide, but rather to encourage loving remembrance and complete forgiveness of those we have lost to it. And to inspire us to reach out and touch with love each person with whom we interact, for God’s love spread through many hands may quench a fire we cannot see.